Diamond In The Rough
by LilyAmelia
Summary: She was always there, just waiting to be uncovered. Time was all it took for Emma Swan to shine. Short glimpses of Emma's life, from birth to Neverland, and how she became the woman she is. Emma-centric
1. Chapter 1

**Diamond in the rough**

**Summary**: She was always there, just waiting to be uncovered. Time was all it took for Emma Swan to shine.

Short glimpses of Emma's life, from birth to Neverland, and how she became the woman she is.

**Disclaimer**: I own nothing. Really, I don't. Not even the time it's going to take for me to write this.

**A/N:** This sprung up on me as I was thinking of swan ice sculptures (yeah, I'm not sure how my brain functions either). Not really sure where this is going, but hey, it's about the journey, isn't it? ;)

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1.

"Find us."

Charming caressed his daughter's loose blond curls, his shaking fingers skimming the spot he had kissed seconds ago. Seconds. That was all he had before Regina's black knights found him again. His throbbing shoulder protested at the thought of picking up a sword, and he forced himself to steady his heartbeat with deep breaths, as his lungs screamed in pain.

Seconds. That was all he had with his daughter, before she was whisked off to a foreign land. Alone. His gut clenched. _She'll find us. She will._

He could not take his eyes off her. Their miracle. Their Emma. She would rescue the land, they said. She would be their savior. _But I don't want a savior - I want my daughter._

Squeezing his eyes shut as they started to burn, he pressed his lips against Emma's forehead for a second - and last- time. _I'm so sorry._

In seconds, he would have to tear himself away from her, shut those wooden doors and fight for his daughter - for her safety, for her freedom, for her life. And he would gladly give up his, if that was what it took. He would protect her, come hell, high water, or Regina's wretched minions who really had _no idea_ who they were up against.

_Make these seconds count, Charming._ "We won't get to see you grow up, Emma." His voice was low, his breath came out in short puffs, but he kept going on. He needed to say it, because she needed to hear it, if only once. Even if she could not understand a word. "We'll miss your first steps, your first real laugh, your first words. There were so many wonderful things we wanted to- "

The knot that had formed in his chest tightened unbearably, and he had to pause. Just a second. "You'll be a formidable woman, Emma. Now, I don't know when, or how- but one day, you'll take all the realms by storm, and you'll find a way back to us. And we'll be so, _so_ proud. We already are."

A loud crash followed by raucous shouts caught his attention, and his heart rate quickened. He cast his daughter one last look, committing her tiny, precious form to memory. _I love you, Emma._ _Be safe._

With a soft click, he locked the wardrobe doors. He pulled himself up, hissing as a bolt of pain shot through his shoulder. The voices were getting closer. _I'm not going to last very long, am I?_ He grimaced at the thought, but tightened his grip on his sword.

As the first knight burst into the room, Charming spun around, weapon raised. No, he would not last long, but it would be enough.


	2. Chapter 2

**Diamond in the rough**

**Summary**: She was always there, just waiting to be uncovered. Time was all it took for Emma Swan to shine.

Short glimpses of Emma's life, from birth to Neverland, and how she became the woman she is.

**Disclaimer**: I own nothing. Really, I don't. Not even the time it's going to take for me to write this.

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2.

"Give me your backpack, Em. It's _way_ too big for someone of your size to carry around." Taking the pink bag from the blond child to her right, Rose Cooper pretended to struggle as she hoisted it over her shoulder. "_Oof_, really heavy too! What on Earth are they making you guys carry to _preschool_?"

Her - granted, pathetic- attempts at humor were in vain as Emma barely cracked a smile. The three-year-old had so far been quiet during the twenty-minute walk from her pre-school to her home. She was hardly a motor mouth, but Rose had always prided herself on getting along spectacularly well with her charge, and little Emma Swan had slowly opened up to her baby-sitter. Lately, she had even taken to recounting the events of her day with enthusiasm. They both delighted in each other's company. _Well, until now, apparently._

Before long, they stood on the Swan's porch, where Emma lived with her adoptive parents. Rose plucked the key that was hidden inside a nook between the wooden floor boards, and unlocked the front door. "In you go, your Highness," she gave Emma a friendly nudge, and shut the door behind her.

Setting down the Cinderella back-pack on the floor, the fifteen-year-old brunette headed towards the kitchen, not before grimacing at the sight of her reflection in the mirror. _God, let this awkward phase be over soon_. "Emma? My sweet tooth is dying for some hot chocolatey goodness, what do you say?" No reply. _Huh_. Wandering around the house, she finally found the tiny blonde in the living room, huddled on the couch, a lost look in her eyes.

She paused for a moment, not taking her gaze off the child. She was a pretty little thing, to be honest- all big green eyes and glorious blond hair. A real miniature princess. _She's going to be a heartbreaker, that one. Watch out, men of the world._

Rose inched closer, taking a seat beside Emma. Sensing the older girl's presence, Emma finally turned to face her - and Rose was struck by the raw, desperate _loneliness_ in the young girl's green orbs. No kid should _ever_ look like that. She was _three_, for crying out loud!

"Hey." Rose's voice came out rougher than she expected, as it struggled against the lump that had suddenly formed. She cleared her throat, and attempted a lighter tone. "Why so glum, chum?"

Emma snatched up a pillow and pulled it tightly against her chest.

Rose had to watch her words. Saying the wrong thing, at the wrong time, meant it was game over. Push her too hard, and Emma would withdraw into herself; three months worth of progress in getting her to open up would disappear. So Rose stayed quiet, opting to stroke the little blonde's hair in what she hoped was a soothing gesture. Just as she was mentally berating herself for being utterly useless, Emma broke the silence.

"Mommy's having a baby."

Whoa. Well, that was unexpected. _And Mrs. Swan didn't say a word! Emma must be so excit-_

A glance at Emma's hunched form instantly chased that thought from her head. Someone was not talking the news well.

"You'll be a big sister now." Rose ventured, gauging the child's reaction. "How do you feel about that?" _They should really think about giving a crash course in child psychology before handing out those baby-sitting diplomas. I am _so_ not ready for this._

"No."

"No?"

"I'm not going to be a big sister." As soon as the words left her lips, her chin began to tremble. "I heard Mommy on the phone."

No. They would _not_-

A fat tear rolled down Emma's pale cheeks. "They're giving me," she let out a thick, wet cough, "back." A few other tears joined the first, and she rubbed her eyes furiously with her bite-sized hands. "I don't want to go back, Rose."

Rose had heard enough. She had no idea if Emma was right, or if she had misinterpreted her mother's phone conversation, but what did it matter? She believed she was going to be abandoned, and it was enough to mess with any child's mind. She scooped Emma onto her lap and pulled the girl against her chest. Thin arms wrapped themselves around her neck in a vice-like grip. Within seconds, her brand-new Bruce Springsteen T-shirt was damp with tears - amongst other things - but she could not care less.

"Oh, Emma," she whispered against blond tresses. "Everything will sort itself out. You'll see." She pressed a kiss on the top of her head. "I know it's hard, right now. You're scared, but-"

She had no words.

"Don't leave me, Rose?" The short sentence was punctuated with sobs, and every cry felt like a punch to the nose. _Why_.

"Hey, Em. Look at me." Reddened, tearful eyes blinked back at her. _Okay, maybe don't. It'll just make this harder. "_I want you to remember that I care about you, okay? Whatever happens, I'll be thinking of you. That's what friends are for." She forced a smile on her face, and tapped the end of Emma's nose. The blonde snuffled, and scrunched her face in reply.

Rose's heart broke for the lonely, lost child before her.

"Now, tiny one." she said softly, lifting Emma from her lap and setting her down on the couch beside her. "How about I make us both some hot chocolate? Cinnamon for her Highness? We'll watch a movie together until your parents get home, okay? Pick one, and I'll be right back."

Rose returned to the living room minutes later, two tall mugs of hot chocolate in hand - one cinnamon-topped and the other chocolate- and handed Emma her drink.

"What did you pick?" She enquired, turning her attention to the screen as she took her seat.

Emma huddled closer, resting her head against Rose's arm. "Peter Pan," she muttered. "It's my favorite. Is that okay?"

Rose glanced quickly at the blonde. Lost boys. Pirates. A boy who refused to grow up and three children looking for home. _Think of the happiest things. It's the same as having wings._

Yeah," she replied, eyes flickering back to the television. "That's okay."


	3. Chapter 3

**Diamond in the rough**

**Summary**: She was always there, just waiting to be uncovered. Time was all it took for Emma Swan to shine.

Short glimpses of Emma's life, from birth to Neverland, and how she became the woman she is.

**Disclaimer**: I own nothing. Really, I don't. Not even the time it's going to take for me to write this.

**A/N:** Thank you so much for the reviews, favorites and follows, you lovely, lovely people. Hope this next part lives up to your expectations!

This isn't a very happy story, is it... I'll try to find the light at some point, I promise! ;) And I hope it isn't too OOC for Emma to burst out as she does in this chapter. Same thing goes for the counselor, I don't think I've got her role down quite right, but for the story purposes, I had to have her react this way.

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3.

Kim Travers' gaze swept over the waiting room, before landing on the bespectacled blond teen currently tapping her fingers against her knee in nervousness.

"Emma Swan?"

Sharp green eyes snapped up to meet her own hazel ones, and the fifteen-year-old girl frowned in confusion. She glanced towards the principal's office, and back to Kim, before a look of comprehension crossed her face. Kim could only watch with dread as Emma picked up her bag, jaw clenched, and headed towards her office with heavy steps, completely avoiding any eye contact. With a sigh, Kim shut the door behind her and took a seat behind her desk.

"Really? The counselor?" Emma raised an eyebrow. "When Mr. Crawford asked me to head to Franklin Hall I was expecting a meeting with Principal Woods."

Kim had read Emma's file before calling her in. Satisfactory grades, rarely got into trouble, decent attendance, got along fairly well with her classmates and teachers. All in all, a pretty normal kid.

She then spotted the glitch. Seven different schools in the past ten years. Lived with six different families.

She had never dealt with foster children before. This was foreign territory, and she found it rather daunting.

"You're not here to get a telling off, Emma." She tucked her short locks behind her ear. _Stay cool, Kim. Don't let her know you're completely out of your element._ "Mr. Crawford was just worried about you. You've fallen asleep in his class four times now. He told me you were a capable student, and he thought it might help you to have someone to talk to."

"He really said that?" Emma blinked in surprise, then seemed to catch herself. "Why would he think I'd want to talk to a total stranger?"

"Because I'd like to think I'm slightly more approachable than Principal Woods," Kim replied with a quick smile. "It's sometimes easier to talk about things to 'a total stranger', as you say. Is there something bothering you, Emma?"

Emma shook her head, but not before Kim noted the slight twitch, the split-second hesitation. Had anyone offered to listen before? "Why are you falling asleep in class?"

"It's nothing," she muttered, rubbing the back of her neck. "I've just had some trouble sleeping lately, that's all."

Kim studied the young teen before her, who was fiddling with her shoulder bag currently sitting on her lap. She scooted closer to her desk. "Is everything alright at home, Emma?"

The moment Emma's green eyes flared up behind her thick glasses and blond bangs, Kim knew she had made a mistake.

"You've read my file, haven't you? And now you think you know everything about me, is that it?" Her grip tightened on her bag, and everything about her posture screamed '_run_'. An angry red flush spread across her cheeks.

_Shit. Shitshitshit. Great job, Travers. _Kim swallowed hard, and raised her hands in what she prayed was a pacifying manner. "I'm not assuming anything, Emma. I just thought I'd offer you a chance to talk. You don't have to, if you don't want to. But I can see you have some anger, and I want you to know you don't have to be alone."

Wrong thing to say, apparently. "You want me to talk? Fine," Emma scoffed, but her voice trembled. "I _am_ alone, Miss Travers. Have always been. You probably saw, looking through my file, that I've been with six foster families since I entered the system. I was _a day old _when I was found by the highway."

"I'm called Emma, because that was the name knitted on the blanket I was wrapped in when they found me. It's the only thing I have left of my parents. Or at least, that's what I tell myself. It's better than thinking the blanket was the only clean bit of fabric they managed to find on such short notice, isn't it? Because, honestly - who the _hell_ knits a blanket for their child only to leave her by the highway hours later?"

Kim had to fight to keep her emotions in check. She had heard versions of this tale many times with teenagers: feeling alone, misunderstood, unwanted. Most of those feelings came from a real place, of course. What kids expected from their close ones was often different from what they received, creating conflict and tension. The anger, the resentment, the sadness in this case, however - rarely had she been faced with so much intensity.

"Things didn't exactly get better, though. You want me to talk about my foster families? Let's _talk_. The Swans were the first family I had. They adopted me when I was two months old, and I was beginning to think I might actually belong somewhere after all. _Wrong_. They gave me back when I was three because they had a child of their own." A bitter laugh bubbled from her lips. "I kept it - the name - because I had nothing else, and it was a way to remind myself that you don't need a family to _be_ someone, and that your name doesn't define you."

"You probably know the rest. It's in my file. Foster home after foster home. Changing schools and friends. I'm having trouble staying awake lately because my foster brother's a jerk who has no notion of acceptable sound levels after two a.m.." She gave an exhausted half-shrug and the corner of her lips lifted. "I'm dealing with it."

At the end of that sentence, Emma suddenly seemed to deflate, and she rubbed her reddened nose. She turned to Kim with a grave expression, eyes slightly shinier than they were moments ago. That snapped Kim out of her trance. "Emma-"

"So yeah, Mrs. Travers. I _am_ angry, and tired, but I _can_ take care of myself. Alone, like I always have." She stood up wearily, slinging her bag over her shoulder. She quickly brushed her fingers over her eyes and pushed her glasses back up her nose. "But you were right. I needed to talk. So, thanks - I guess." She headed towards the door. "I'd better get back to class."

Kim scrambled to her feet. "Emma! If you ever need-" The door clicked shut. "-anything, feel free to stop by." Her sentence floated around the empty room.

With a soft groan, Kim slumped back in her seat. She crossed her arms above her desk and laid her forehead against them. _That went fantastically well, Travers. Applause all around._

In a few months, Emma would age out of the system, and as she so aptly illustrated in her small speech, she would end up alone. Kim did not need to spend hours with her to see she was an independent, resourceful young girl. More reed than oak tree - capable of adapting to whatever stumbling block life placed in her path, and coming out of each trial shaken but stronger. Yet there were limits, there always were. How long until she snapped? Or worse, until she finished building that protective wall around her, the one that saved her from getting hurt by others, but made sure she stayed alone?

Kim paused in front of her door before calling in her next student.

_What would become of Emma Swan?_


	4. Chapter 4

**Diamond in the rough**

**Summary**: She was always there, just waiting to be uncovered. Time was all it took for Emma Swan to shine.

Short glimpses of Emma's life, from birth to Neverland, and how she became the woman she is.

**Disclaimer**: I own nothing. Really, I don't. Not even the time it's going to take for me to write this.

**A/N:** Thank you so much every review, favorite and follow this fic received for the last chapter. Hope this next part lives up to your expectations!

My take on Emma discovering she's pregnant. Slight change of style for this chapter, but I think it fits the tone, as this one is all about Emma. She's truly alone, and in a way, this is her rock bottom. Not my best work, but this was _hard_!

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4.

She stares at the little plus sign, and the first thought that crosses her mind is _I wonder if orange jump suits come in baby size_.

Which is ridiculous, and flippant, and oh god, she isn't ready for this, not now, not here, not _alone_. A bubble of hysteria swells in her chest. Whether it's laughter or tears, she doesn't have a clue.

Only she's pretty sure it isn't laughter, because no way in hell is this _funny. _It's an epic Greek tragedy, and she's the doomed protagonist.

She focuses on the stick, unblinking, until her vision becomes blurry and her eyes burn, but it's nothing compared to the endless emptiness she feels in her chest. The hole was always there, she supposes. It's a hole her parents dug when they left her by the road, and ever since, nothing Emma does seems to fill it.

_You came close. Closer than you ever thought you would._ Yes. She was almost certain Neal was _it_. Family. Home. Her Tallahassee. She was wrong. So wrong.

_"He called in a tip, told us to take a look at the surveillance tape in the train station."_

The man she would have followed to the edge of the world and back betrayed her. He dropped a dynamite stick in the fissure that was starting to heal, and blew the whole thing wide open again. The edges are charred, black and burnt. She doesn't think it will ever close itself. Not after that.

_"Sorry to tell you, but your boy took off."_

When Neal disappeared, when he left her stranded there, with that _stupid_ watch dangling from her wrist as the cop pointed a gun at her - you'd think she'd get used to feeling abandoned. Ha_._ No, she damn well wasn't.

_"Unless he set you up."_

She remembers the pity in the officer's eyes, as he realizes she was nothing but a fool, stabbed in the back by her boyfriend, strung along like a naive little girl.

"_You know your rights?_ _Good girl_."

Good, gullible, exploitable girl. That's what she is, though. No. She sniffs, and straightens on the hard bench of her cell. That's what she _was._

And almost instantly, she deflates, and feels the tears pricking under her eyelids. She's done with being used, sure. And she's going to learn from her mistakes. But what good would that do _now_?

_Look at me. Emma Swan. Orphan. Lost girl. One hell of a mother you'll be._

Because the terrifying little piece of plastic is still there, between her fingers, and she has no damn clue on how to deal with this. She's self-aware, a lot more self-aware than most of the girls her age, but right now, she wishes she wasn't.

Because she knows she's a barely legal high school dropout, with a criminal record and without any qualifications or contacts, and whose skills are limited to pick-pocketing and some strangely accurate form of lie-detection, which won't get her a job anywhere. She has no family, no friends, no home.

Because she can barely look after herself, so how the hell could she possibly raise a child?

Her focus breaks when she hears the metal bars clang. The guard they have all taken to calling Mighty Molly strides up to her, a letter in hand. She starts talking, but Emma isn't listening. She can't concentrate, not now. The words melt into a monotonous buzzing that her brain barely catches, she sees Molly's mouth move but the sounds that escape all come across as identical, and lip-reading isn't one of her skills, remember?

It isn't until Molly brandishes the car keys, and she spots the silver swan swing from the keychain, that Emma snaps back to the present.

He left her the car. He left her the _shit piece of scrap metal he stole and barely even runs anymore, anyway_.

The word 'Phuket' suddenly registers and she realizes he must have fenced the watches, and he's gone now, far away, somewhere safe (_Tallahassee it was supposed to be their Tallahassee_). A spark goes off, deep inside her, and all of a sudden she hates him.

Neal was a thief. She knew it then, she knows it now. He didn't steal her heart (you can't steal a heart, it's yours and only yours to give, she believes - and she _did_ give it, so willingly), but he took everything else. He robbed her of her trust, her freedom, her happy-goddamn-ending. And she _hates_ him for it, because she has nothing left. Nothing but a stolen yellow bug, an unborn child and a frighteningly uncertain future.

She has nothing left to give.

Molly's wry «congratulations» as she leaves the cell acts like another punch to Emma's gut, and her mind scrambles to piece back the guard's parting sentence. She quickly matches up dates in her head, only to feel the blood slowly drain from her and beads of sweat break out on her forehead as she reaches the cold, hard conclusion of giving birth (_oh god_ _not ready not ready_) sometime during her sentence. She was going to bring a baby into this world, into her already messed-up life, and she wouldn't even be there for him - her? - at the very beginning.

_What the hell are you going to do, Emma?_

She knows what will happen when she gets out. She gets the keys, the car, and starts over in some big, anonymous city. She'll fight through life, as she has always done. Work hard, put your head down, move on.

But the baby... The baby doesn't _have_ to live the same life she did, doesn't have to grow up sharing her hardships and struggles - all because the mother was an idiot who gave her heart to the wrong man and paid for it.

The baby could have a chance to be _happy. _In fact, she'll make sure of it.

She realizes she was wrong. She still has one thing left to give.

_I'll give you your best chance._


End file.
